A GURU I KNEW once told me to live my life telling the truth to everyone. IN four different ways. He made me write it down so I could remember it. 1.) Tell the truth about myself to MYSELF. 2.) Tell the truth about myself to OTHERS! (EEK!) 3.) Tell the truth about OTHERS to myself and 4.) and here’s where the wicket gets sticky, tell the truth about OTHERS to OTHERS! Right to their face. OUCHEY!

I have found that to do that LAST one requires a real jocular manner. People aren’t used to hearing unvarnished truth. So you have to stylize it, drape it right, drop it on them in fragments of fairy dust not throw it to them in one big lump. Pin a haha button on their lapel and help them giggle at it.
 

EVERYTHING that comes to your mind is probably the truth. Usually stuff you find suddenly out of nowhere in your brain has leapt there from the unconscious. OUR unconscious is GOD in comparison to us. Well, it is UNLESS your unconscious is seriously tweaked. Neurotics have a little bent GNOME inside their unconscious tracing dark, moldy maps in the darkness of subjective reasoning with leprotic fingers.

But you….you probably have that eagle eyed inner angel who wears a magnifying diadem over his third eye and can spot things (at forty thousand leagues altitude) that are absolute truth -- like spy planes which can read license plates at ten miles distance.

The keen eyed INTUITION angel then whispers them to you. And your mouth passes the info on to a startled audience. And in your fantasy, they clap!

If you’re right, and of course your angel is. SO now that we’ve settled that—that YOUR compasses aren’t rusty, --- we still gotta analyze the wisdom of sharing your perceptions. Do you dare to voice them? Unfiltered?

Imagine Christmas party coming up. Imagine you seeing your high society patron lady pal waddle in. She’s wearing a white silk hostess pants/blouse from the 70’s, pearls to her belly button and you say ‘Adele, what on earth possessed you to wear that?’

You did her a favor for life. Next ten parties she wears a fat suit in a dark color. She’s better off but do you still want to go there? SURE! YES,if you are a reckless bigmouth. Isn’t it possible that a.) some of what you say could offend?Some of what you saw wasn’t true and accurate; it was just a bent, warped paranoid feeling your inner Gnome had? C.) Nobody died upstairs recently and made YOU GOD, did they? Maybe while we weren’t looking? You are the appointed anointed one? And you didn’t send me an E-mail when it happened?

IF none of the above is true and you start voicing what you think……trouble lies dead ahead. If you think the ALASKAN oil tanker spill caused a big mess, wait ‘til you start saying what you think! A lot more than seagulls are gonna have muck on their wings. And a lot of it always rubs off on the source. That’s you.

But truth is a game we can try in gradual increments. The truth game once was an L.A. party night do-able. Played in that context, one was less likely to get jumped on.

I played in living room groups where we'd ask any question that occurred to us to ask, probing strangers for their bios, their wishlist, their secret terrors and getting to the truth of that person's existence. At first, we satisfied 'group curiosity' about intriguing people. Sometimes very plain people had unsuspected depths and beautiful people were as shallow as a ditch. 

'Pile-ups' were allowed, where the group would concentrate on one person, querying, probing, discovering. There ought to be some tact rules as some would give a candid opinion in a way they'd NEVER do in any other setting. So the offended person should be able to lift his hand, say 'take a vote on whether I'm being skinned or not,' and if they feel a sadistic skinning is going on, then the offended member gets to torch the pyromaniac! 

This work may bruise a few noses, so for a few meetings, it may be necessary to do some clean-up afterwards, too. 'I felt hurt when John said I was a lazy lady with a game and an agenda." And these two people resolve it until NOBODY is hurting. Until no noses are out of joint. 

Once the group has assembled a few times for this kind of 'Shark School Feeding Frenzy' fun --- once the group has admitted to an interest in coming awake and learning how to establish a beach head of consciousness and has learned a few methods to transform sleep behavior to watchfulness, self awareness--- once everyone has had his games and his infantile agendas busted, invent a new game. 

By now the group is fairly friendly, knows the hangups of every person there. The caffe klatch feels very much like the convening of a real family. Now, it is necessary to all wake ourselves UP a degree or two, a notch or two above normal, waking chat consciousness, with auto suggestive magic like taking home made Bach Flower remedies in drops, as 'tea,' and by doing some basic yoga kriyas, some prayer, group chanting, or group singing of a familiar song like Amazing Grace. 

These things seem to center people, lift them up to the ecstatic notch that grass did in the sixties. In the sixties the groups I attended didn't smoke weed to play 'truth'. On a theoretical level, we could have all gotten a little stoned and gained that 'instant' ability to GROK one another, but I never knew of a consciousness seeking group that did it. It would have been a good idea. People did get together to smoke, but they never did anything as organized as group work when they did. 

Grass certainly works to catapult one up thru that trap door into the attic that is really a PENTHOUSE with balconies overlooking the entire astral plane, but it was never ever done in the context of a guided spiritual group that I ever saw, and I was, after all, in L.A and went a lot of places. Grass was smoked in living rooms, patios, by party goers, but not SPIRITUAL party goers. 

Anyway, the owners and floor managers of the New Bethlehem don't allow kooky sects with psych games unless they stay substance free, so perhaps Bach flower remedies (made soaking flowers from your garden in spring water overnight,) and a meal of some fairly normal green leaves --like a home made spinach salad served with a tofu-cheese quiche would be quite enough. (NO real cheese as it stupefies the mind,). 

You might experiment here, add red wine on one night, black coffee on another. (I hear that if you put enough nutmeg in a banana smoothie you get a wholesome buzz.) Anyway, it's not about food. It's about playing TRUTH. 

Now here is where we’re going with this. In a social context, in your Xmasparty life, immediately ahead, a microdose, a homeopathic dose of truth -- can salt and pepper ordinary party conversation and make it very savory. When your conversation is unique, single men tend to notice that there’s something unique and wonderful and amusing about your brain. You’ve already got them going with a fabulous tight waist party suit, décolletage, great gams, and then this champagne coming out of your mouth?

As long as it’s sweet, bubbly and foamy and light. You can’t put your gas pedal to the ground on this one because it quickly become an old trick, a dangerous one --but like watching race car drivers go around bends, it fascinates onlookers for a while. Creates a heart beat where there is none. So it’s a great way to start a relationship FAST!

All I’m saying is you might want to attempt this trick, this holiday season. IN A CRANBERRY RED CHRISTMAS VELVET SUIT! Nobody will ever forget you!